Hopefully the answer most of the time is no…but I wanted to talk about something called “the mental load.” An article in Forbes calls it “emotional labor.” Another article in Refinery29 defines it as “the state of living in the shadow of a never-ending-to-do-list.” There is a 2017 report commissioned by the non-profit care organization Bright Horizons that found that mothers are responsible not just for “their half of household duties and childcare” but also essentially managing all aspects of family matters. They also found that the more a woman earns, the more responsibility she will carry at home. I realize these are generalizations and may not apply to everyone.
This past year and a half had me thinking a lot about this “mental load.” The point of this blog post is not to talk bad about our partners/husbands but to bring a different perspective to this issue. It became very clear over the pandemic that mothers in general were carrying the burden of caring for their children, while maintaining the household, and for some of us, also trying to hold a job.
Nobody told me that I had to be the one in charge of buying all baby supplies, or meal planning, food shopping, making doctors’ appointments, and plan birthday parties. It naturally fell to me to do these things. I am sure my husband would start food shopping if he constantly found that he had no cereal, milk, or dinner on the table, but I am also sure that it wouldn’t be what I wanted.
So what is the solution? How do we get partners to help? I hear some of you thinking, “Why do I have to get my partner to help? Why don’t they just know to do it? The answer is that they do but it’s not in the way you (me) want it to be.
Let me give an example. I used to always pack the diaper bag. I carefully placed the right number of diapers, changes of clothes, hand sanitizing spray (yes, even pre-COVID!), plastic bag for dirty clothes, changing pad, wipes, hand wipes, snacks, toys, and an assortment of sunscreens/bug sprays/lip gloss for me. The first time I had my husband pack the diaper bag, he did not pack the “right” snacks, or the clothes I wanted, and I can’t remember now, but I am sure there were no plastic bags, and he probably forgot wipes. The good news is you only forget wipes ONCE (same goes for diapers). The rest of the stuff that goes in there is quite subjective but I felt like he was doing it wrong just to taunt me (he wasn’t). He has packed the diaper bag hundreds of times now and most of the time, there are no issues, except for the voice in my head saying he didn’t do it right. I usually tell that voice to be quiet or to do the packing myself.
The same logic goes for most things. Food shopping, cleaning the house, family celebrations, school events, activities, etc. I know my husband could do all of those things, even without me saying anything. He may not do them right away or it may take a few awkward situations (ops, it’s 30 degrees and the kids don’t have winter jackets that fit them) but I know he would do them. He would probably not do any of the things he doesn’t care about, like making cards for the classroom or dressing the kids up in the theme of the week. He also would have no guilt about it. We would eat no salad and lots of pasta and bread but we would have food in our fridge and daily dinners.
Over time, it can be very easy to get resentful of our partners if we feel like we are carrying this mental load all by ourselves. I know I talked about a solution, so here it goes: a list of ways to get past the resentment and exhaustion that carrying the mental load can lead to!
- Have an honest conversation with yourself. Before you can approach another person, it is very important to be very clear about what you need and want from them. Brooke Castillo calls it “the manual”, a set of rules we have for people that they have never read, so of course, they can’t follow them. Your partner does not know what you want and expecting that person to read your mind will lead to failure every time.
- Communicate. After you realize what you want and need, you should talk with your partner. Do remember that just because you tell them you want them to do something, doesn’t mean they will do it. It goes both ways of course. Hopefully, you can have a good conversation about how to share all the responsibilities of being in a family.
- Do not think of it as 50/50. After 14 years together and almost 8 years married, I realized I do not want my husband to do any of the food shopping or meal planning, or even most things related to the children. I do not like how he does it, the choices he makes, and it frankly ends up being more work for me at the end. When I first had children, I thought we would split all children related things equally. It does not have to be that way! We both naturally fell into the roles that we preferred, which has worked wonderfully. He never calls to make doctor’s appointments and I have never called Comcast for cable issues or taken my car in for an inspection, gas change, or anything else. I would say I do 100% of planning around children and food things and he does 100% of planning around house stuff, bills, insurances, cars, and legal things.
- Communicate again! I cannot emphasize how important communication with your partner is. Even if you already have a way of doing things, you may find that things can change and that perhaps you need something different from your partner that day. I also cannot say this enough times: your partner can’t read your mind! It may feel like they can sometimes if you have been together for a while but they really can’t. Just because I make all the doctor’s appointments, doesn’t mean I take the kids to all of them. Sometimes, I send him to the grocery store with the list. Sometimes, I even put him in charge of a meal!
- Set boundaries. If you follow all the steps above and you still feel like you are drowning or are all alone, you may need a bit more help. You can communicate all you want and make your needs known, but at some point, your partner has to decide whether or not they want t hear you out or minimize your feelings and make you feel like you are a crazy person for even bringing this up. If they go for the latter, that is when you have to decide for yourself whether you want to tolerate that, see a marriage therapist, or get out of the relationship. It is not the other person’s responsibility to do anything or change because you tell them to but it is totally up to you how you react to their actions.
I hope these 5 tips can be helpful for you. Our worlds became literal bubbles in the last year and a half and so many of us were cut off from larger support systems, it became impossible not to take a hard look at the person that was there all the time. If you are in a relationship where you feel like you carry most of the burden or if you feel like your partner does not contribute as much as you would like them to, it is easy to become resentful. Once you are resentful, it is very hard to have a good relationship.
What a good relationship is will look different for everyone but what is true no matter what, is that open communication, honesty, and respect is needed to have that happily, ever after so many of us are after! Once I actually stopped to take a look at all aspects of our lives together, I realized that I was discounting so many things my husband was doing. I would rather think about my children all day every day than have to deal with anything house-related any time! For that, I will be forever grateful. I feel like he could write a post about the mental load of owning a 100-year-old home.
References
Frizzell, Nell. We Aren’t Moaning, We’re Just Carrying The Mental Load In Our Relationships. Refinery29. July 25, 2019.
Carrell, Rachel. Let’s Share Women’s Mental Load. Forbes.com. August 15, 2019.